Points of Reflection
by sciathan file
Summary: [Multiple Character Introspective, implied TamakixHaruhi] After the busy events of the Culture Festival, reflection becomes possible. Spoilers for manga volume 6. [Part 4: Haruhi wonders where the absurdity of the Host Club fits into her reality.]
1. Keeping Up Appearances

**Points of Reflection**

Sciathan File

**Spoilers:** This whole entire fic is pretty much a gigantic spoiler for the events of volume 6 of the manga.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Host Club…I just play with the characters and their world from time to time to amuse myself.

**Keeping Up Appearances**

After the chaotic weeks leading up to the Cultural Festival, he finally found a brief respite in which to sit back and think about the events that had happened in the past few days.

And indeed, for Tamaki, such a period of contemplation would not have been complete without mentally recalling his conversation with his precious daughter at the festival's dance ball at least a dozen times.

Although with this memory, he became conscious that he had also made another mistake in front of his grandmother.

But Tamaki Suoh was not one to regret his actions.

There had been no lies in the words he had said to Haruhi.

He was very serious about the fact that he would be himself before he was a Suoh.

Being a Suoh was something _he _had never chosen. Certainly, he enjoyed the benefits of money and prestige that were attached to the name…but, in the end, these weren't things that were essential to who he was.

And Tamaki wasn't anything if he wasn't aware of himself.

He regarded himself as was quite handsome and intelligent…and his extensive knowledge of the commoners' culture certainly could become quite useful if he ever needed it.

There was no need to depend entirely upon the prestige and power that his name lent him when he had his own attributes.

He thought of all these things as he told her.

And, indeed, Tamaki would never so much as think of lying to Haruhi.

His words were the absolute Truth. He was himself before he was a Suoh.

However, as he drew the silk sheets of his bed over him and drew Beary into the crook of his arm, he reflected on (with a rather large yawn) when he had first decided that.

In the end, it all came back to being what his name required him to be.

It came from the pressure of constantly keeping up appearances.

Many summers before he had actually come to live permanently in Japan, he had often come here during the summer months at his father's request.

It was supposed to be a way for him to be able to learn the culture and the language of the country that Yuzuru Suoh hoped that his son would eventually take as his own.

Tamaki couldn't say that he hated these visits. He certainly loved to see the strange sights and sounds of his other heritage.

But in truth, he missed his mother and France's tranquil familiarity whenever he came to Japan.

His mother had only accompanied him once and had spent the entirety of the trip in bed smiling and telling him that the time change was very difficult for her to deal with.

Every summer holiday after that Tamaki would put on a brave face and tell her that he would be fine without her. He would then ignore the maids that tried to console him as he cried in a dark and obscure corner of his father's private jet.

Suddenly, the expression that his grandmother had made as he ate the small bite of strawberry cake served as the dance party's refreshments surfaced in his thoughts again, and he recalled his first meeting with her two summers before he had moved to Japan permanently, leaving France and his mother behind.

He was told by the small army of maids that were assigned to prepare him for another dance party in order to entertain prominent business connections of the Suoh family that he would get to meet someone very important to his future. Indeed, the maids, who usually had a lively and rather mischievous demeanor, talked in hushed, cautious voices about the Suoh Matriarch. But, having met no other family members beyond his own parents, Tamaki was still excited about the prospect of meeting another relative.

Nothing prepared him for the severe woman that entered and sat down.

She was beautiful and was traditionally clad in a kimono worth several thousands of dollars. Behind her chair a small entourage of servants stood at military attention.

There was a heavy silence as she scrutinized the boy who was supposed to be her grandson. She then began to address him without preamble.

"You are distasteful to me. But if I must tolerate you, you had better do your best not to disgrace the Suoh name that was so unfortunately bestowed upon you."

Tamaki remembered thinking that his grandmother was a beautiful person…but he couldn't quite understand, at first, why her words lacked the graceful nature of her demeanor.

Meanwhile his grandmother went on and delivered her instructions as to how he was supposed to proceed during the evening.

"If you are asked, you shall unconditionally answer that your mother is dead. No other answer will suffice. I will be frank…that is all that I expect from the son of a harlot. Do you understand?"

Normally such words would have caused him to immediately cry and rush for a corner. But here he could not do that. However, his father had told him to try to impress her…and his mother had told him to behave as she had taught him to no matter what.

And so, Tamaki could only look at her with a dumbstruck expression. He had always had a gift with words, or so many of the female students had always told him, but he could not understand why his own grandmother would say such a thing about his mother.

So he turned back to what he had always known.

He stood up and bowed to her and said cheerfully, "I am glad to finally have the pleasure of meeting my grandmother and discovering her to be such a beautiful woman." He flashed his brightest smile at her as she merely looked on with a pensive expression, "Indeed, I am pleased to find that you, like my mother, are a woman of incomparable loveliness. However, my mother, although her health is rather poor as of late, is very much alive."

Tamaki bowed to his grandmother again, with flourish, his smile never losing even a touch of its brilliance.

From her seated position, the Suoh family matriarch merely kept her steady gaze on her unacknowledged grandson. After a long period of silence she closed her eyes and gave him a ghost of a nod.

As she rose, carefully aware of the trailing sleeves of her kimono, she simply said, "I see that I was indeed correct."

With deliberate slowness and a proud, haughty grace, she exited the room without another word.

That was the moment that Tamaki learned what being a Suoh truly meant. And, when he learned that, surprisingly, his grandmother wished to acknowledge him as someone that was actually connected to her own name, he learned the entire cost of simply having a name.

Yes, he was given his own mansion…a building built for the first legal and estranged wife of his father. The entire building was like a corner of his family's domain that he had been given solely as a location in which he could assume his dejection pose in…at least, that was how Kyouya had wryly put it once. But the unique position of the Suoh's would-be heir to the rest of his family was not widely known in the circles of the elite that they were part of.

That was chiefly because the first rule of politics within such an established power structure was that one had to perpetually keep up appearances.

And Tamaki had decided that he never wanted to do such a thing. The name didn't matter to him, the power and prestige didn't matter to him.

These had cost him, at least for the time being, his mother.

What mattered to him was simply the ability to love who he pleased. And that was simply a matter of choosing for himself who he wished to be.

And this principle was why Ouran High School's Host Club existed within the walls of the infamous Third Music Room. Within the restrictive society that surrounded the children of the elite, Tamaki Suoh had created one place that allowed the heir of an extremely tough martial arts family to enjoy cute things, a set of twins to experience a life outside of their tiny world, and the third son of a family to exercise and cultivate talents that would have been otherwise ignored and that could one day win him the status of an heir.

The Host Club existed because Tamaki inherently understood that he was not alone in trying to not only find, but keep his own identity, while under the shadow of an inherited name.

Part of him wanted to make the only person he knew that was capable of being completely herself understand that about them.

Before he finally drifted off to sleep in the comfortable darkness, Tamaki had a moment of weary exhilaration at the fact that she had smiled at him when he told her that.

Tamaki's last thought before he fell into a deep, restful sleep was that he was glad that Haruhi had understood.

**Fin**

**A/N: ** This is a bunny that has been bothering me for a very long time and I have finally gotten enough time to sit down and actually write it out. Anyways, as mentioned in the spoiler (well, sorta) this is going to focus on the aftermath of the cultural festival from Volume 6 of the manga from the points of view of Tamaki and 3 other characters (perhaps more, if ideas come to me). Anyways, please give me your thoughts and comments, as they are very much appreciated (and I very much love nerdy discussions as well). Just to let you know, I do try very hard to respond to all the reviews I get personally. Thank you for reading!


	2. Firsts and Thirds

**Spoilers:** Again, this whole entire fic is pretty much a gigantic spoiler for the events of volume 6 of the manga.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Host Club…I just play with the characters and their world from time to time to amuse myself.

**Part II - Firsts and Thirds**

After the chaotic weeks leading up to the Cultural Festival, he finally found a brief respite in which to sit back and think about the events that had happened in the past few days.

Despite it all, there was simply one thing he could say…

_The game had gone extremely well._

And, alone in the back of the second of the Ootori family's Rolls Royce limousines, Kyouya could only smirk into the darkness at this thought.

But, for the time being, at least, his father had been appeased. He had been able to see his third son - whom no one expected to be able to vie with his two older brothers - engineer and manipulate a convoluted scheme that would be remembered in the history of Ouran High School for decades to come.

Of course, it was not Kyouya himself that would be the face of this plan within the annuls of history.

But this detail had been planned for and integrated into his original design.

His father appreciated subtlety and although the Host Club's victory and acquisition of the festival's Central Salon carried the face of Tamaki Suoh, his father, and indeed anyone who had any sort of knowledge concerning the third Ootori son, knew that the triumph carried the unmistakable signature of the club's Shadow King.

This strategic move carried the added bonus of pleasing the powerful Yuzuru Suoh, as well. The Suoh family had, up until now, been apart from any dealings with his own family…and his father _had _mentioned on many occasions that the connections he forged within the Host Club might serve to be quite lucrative in the future to the Ootori Corporation.

Indeed, Kyouya mused that if he were to be judged solely on the connections that he had cultivated during the course of his interesting game, there was no doubt whom his father would choose as his successor.

He had, on more than one occasion, mentioned that the "idiotic" Suoh heir (not that Kyouya disagreed with his father's assessment at times) was quite an acquaintance to have made.

And rare though it may be, Kyouya completely agreed with him…albeit for very different reasons.

Out of all the games that Kyouya chose to play, the familial _danse macabre_ that he had been involved with for as long as he was conscious of the stakes was by far the most interesting.

And, the truth was that he played this, for the time being, on the smaller chessboard of the Host Club. Currently, there were only three pieces that truly interested him, because they were of the greatest strategic importance to his overall hierarchy of moves.

He, of course, always pictured himself as controlling the Queen. Although the piece did not have the glory of the King, it was by far the most powerful and strategically useful. Tamaki, in and of himself, was in many ways like his similarly ranked piece…without the help of the other pieces, he retained his importance, but was fairly useless strategically.

Ultimately, Kyouya knew that the one who retained his power over the King, also attained the ability to control the direction of the game.

Kyouya was not his father though. His control was not solely for the purpose of manipulating Tamaki for the profit he might turn or the merit such a prestigious connection gave him…Tamaki was perhaps the one person in the competitive and cutthroat society that truly came to him in the spirit of friendship and loyalty.

And indeed, Kyouya was certain that he was the only one to whom he reciprocated this sense of loyalty.

But, he was not so foolhardy as to simply discount any sort of a profit motivation.

That was something that Tamaki and _only_ Tamaki would do.

Because, if one decided to use the chessboard of the Host Club, then it was necessary to admit that Tamaki Suoh was the glue that held the entire game together.

Because when the King was captured, the game would end.

This was something that Kyouya had known from the very beginning.

However, in his match, the Rook, a piece which only moved straight ahead in clear cut fashion, had been moving closer and closer to a strategic showdown with his own piece.

And indeed, Haruhi moved among the ranks of the Host Club, oblivious to the destruction she wrought in the comfortable and oddly complacent world of the rich boys that she had accidentally surrounded herself with.

The Rook, simple and unassuming though she may be, could cleave the board in two with one straight line.

To anyone with a discerning eye, the effects were already more than apparent.

Kyouya, due to his position as Tamaki's best friend, had seen him act in ways that were contrary to all the carefully documented traits that he had known in all the three years they had been friends when Haruhi was present.

The changes had at first become apparent during Renge's disastrous, although pathetically amusing, movie shoot. In the aftermath of that otaku-induced fiasco, Kyouya had witnessed the first and only time that Tamaki, normally polite and gentlemanly to a fault, had committed an act of violence.

And that episode had only heralded the long list of firsts that Kyouya would become privy to…Indeed, Tamaki prided himself on being honest and unscrupulous…yet by his own design, he was now embroiled in an all out lie concerning the gender of Ouran's only special scholarship student.

Additionally, as anyone who knew Tamaki for more than a day of his life knew, was quite the crybaby. Surprisingly, during their all too eventful trip to the beach, in order to make a point, Tamaki had exhibited uncharacteristic self-control in order to show Haruhi that there were indeed people that worried about her. And although Kyouya himself had had to ultimately enforce this in a manner that she could understand without confusion, he doubted anyone had seen the Host Club's King restrain himself from sitting in a corner sulking for such a long duration of time.

And, finally, tonight, he had witnessed him make his first conscious mistake in front of his grandmother for Haruhi's benefit.

To someone who knew Tamaki Suoh, this one simple gesture spoke volumes about the ways that the game might proceed.

And perhaps this precedent was the most troubling of them all.

He knew what Tamaki thought of the society that he had only unwittingly become a part of by an accident of birth – and it was this same society that Kyouya himself had to constantly negotiate due to an accident in birth order. However, the difference between them was that in the end, Tamaki simply did not care enough for it to go to the lengths and play the games that he was told to.

He had simply created a space where he didn't have to obey the rules.

But now, he had a sort of temptation to find a space where escaping those rules could possibly become permanent.

Rather, he had found a _person_ who might be able to accomplish this aim.

Because, like all of the other members of the Host Club, Tamaki had now caught a glimpse of the world beyond the ridiculous amounts of roses and gilt that assembled the world of Ouran High School.

For the first time in all of their lives, they had had a glimpse of a straightforward reality without the need to compete for an inheritance or keep up designated appearances or bow to another's authority over one's own innate desires. Through Haruhi, they had seen that there were forces outside of money and prestige and blood that were powerful enough to capture and knock their own pawns off of the board.

If Tamaki had given the members of the club leave to ignore the wealthy society that had tried to impose its standards of comportment and silly rules of succession upon them, then it was Haruhi, by simple virtue of her nature and rather…_unique_…perspectives, who had might cause them to be wholly unable to remain solely in the Wonderland of the Host Club.

Kyouya closed his eyes for a moment and pondered this thought, opening them after a moment to look out the window at the tall hedges that bounded off the large tracts of property within his neighborhood.

He was very much aware that they would not be able to remain in Wonderland forever.

Kyouya only managed the madness that occurred there as was fitting of his role in the story. But, the story would end. Graduation would come.

Reality would follow.

He sometimes wondered if he was the only one who definitively knew this.

But for the time being, Tamaki was the Mad Hatter that was the self-appointed and rather idiotic master of that world. In the background, Kyouya's own Black Queen would remain on the fringes of both the world of the storybook and the world outside of its gilded pages and document and understand what happened in both. However, as a third son, he was perfectly cognizant that he was not free to leave Wonderland by himself.

Because only Alice, who the storybook land _thought_ should be at its will, could actually move freely between the two worlds without consequence.

And it was an interesting gamble to try to discern exactly whom she would bring out of the surreal world when all was said and the perfunctory "happily ever after" was added.

For now, Kyouya would merely regard her as an aberration within his plans and hope that she never turned into anything more.

But Haruhi Fujioka was certainly making it more interesting than he ever thought it could be.

As the scenery outside the darkly tinted windows changed to something calmingly familiar, Kyouya sighed tiredly, thinking that his mind had run away with him…or perhaps that some of Tamaki's nonsense was finally rubbing off on him.

Indeed, the game could only become more interesting from here on.

And, for now, he was in control of the board.

And he had no doubt that he could manipulate the rest of the pieces to prevent the Rook from driving the King into checkmate…or Alice from showing them that Wonderland was a well-crafted dream.

But, for once he was uncertain that a profit motive would win out.

…but again with the foolishness.

Kyouya decided that sleep was what he needed to cure his recent rash of nonsensical thoughts.

The red brake lights of the other limousine, making its long way up the sloping driveway of the Ootori mansion only a few feet in front of his own vehicle, flashed briefly and drew his attention.

His thoughts were forcibly directed away from the absurdity of Wonderland and back to the chessboard at hand.

Who knew what his father would say to his brothers when he stepped out of the back seat? Perhaps they would both be surprised that the third son that so little was expected from had managed to accomplish so much…and, perhaps, had even exceeded the accomplishments of the favored two.

However, they would also notice that the person who their father spoke so highly of at the moment had not even been accorded the courtesy of riding with him in the same car in his moment of victory.

At this thought Kyouya yet again smiled, although there was a slightly bitter edge to it.

Perhaps that is why he understood Tamaki's situation so very well.

The difference between riding in the second Ootori Rolls Royce and living within Suoh Mansion #2 was only a matter of duration…not necessarily of significance.

But hopefully, in both regards, that would change.

Stepping out of the car and following at a short distance behind his father, Kyouya knew that he could only take one fact for granted.

_The game could only become more interesting from here._

**Fin**

**A/N: **Here is Kyouya's take on the events of the cultural festival. I really wanted to play with the dynamics of Haruhi and Tamaki, specifically how Tamaki is sort of a force of creation and how Haruhi could potentially become a divisive force if she ever _is_ paired off with anyone. Kyouya, however, would probably be the only one to realize this…although I'm not sure how much of that original idea actually ended up in this fic. Instead, a bunny concerning the dichotomy of the Host Club's sort of artificial world and the Haruhi's world of reality sort of ran away with the fic…I blame the influence of LadyStargazer's truly superb fic "Miles Before I Sleep." If you haven't read it, by all means do. Anyways, recs and notes aside, thank you all for reading. If you left me some comments, I would truly love you! Wow…author's note is egregiously long…sorry!


	3. Crossing Lines

**Spoilers:** Again, this whole entire fic is pretty much a gigantic spoiler for the events of volume 6 of the manga. This especially applies to this chapter, as many of the details are extracted from there that may not appear in more general summaries of the manga chapters.

**Warning:** Rampant speculation on the part of the author. Enjoy!

**Disclaimer:** I'm most likely writing fanfiction because I don't own Host Club…I just play with the characters and their world from time to time to amuse myself.

**Part III – Crossing Lines**

After the chaotic weeks leading up to the Cultural Festival, he finally found a brief respite in which to sit back and think about the events that had happened in the past few days.

And, looking at the blank sheet of paper in front of him, Yuzuru Suoh could do nothing but chuckle.

During the course of the day's busy events the unassuming sheet of paper had mysteriously made its way into the leather briefcase he carried to and from his office and somehow had ended up in a highly visible spot grouped with a number of important and time sensitive documents.

The paper smelled vaguely of oranges.

Flipping open a lighter, acquired from some mysterious corner of the main Suoh mansion after a discreet request to a maid, he held the flame at a small distance below the paper until the unmistakable flamboyant and flowery script of his son was revealed by the heat.

The note only contained a single sentence that nonetheless caused Yuzuru to shake his head – halfway in amusement and halfway in consternation.

"Dearest Father

I am using the Commoner's ingenious message conveying device to tell you that it would greatly please me to accept your most gracious and innovative invitation to a luncheon at a time that serves your greatest convenience.

Love your ever loving and charming son, Tamaki"

One of these days, _someone_ would have to teach that foolish boy about economy of expression.

Who would be brave enough to take on the task – and, moreover, have the sheer patience necessary to see it through to its arduous end - he did not know.

Perhaps he would request that Shima work harder on that particular aspect in Tamaki's etiquette lessons.

Yuzuru smiled at the thought of the Suoh Mansion #2's housekeeper repeatedly making Tamaki say something simple in an utterly undecorated manner…Tamaki would probably hate every minute of it.

But, ah, how precious his moments of exquisite pain would be!

…Amusing though the thought was as it played within the theater of his mind, he knew he would only imagine setting Shima and her etiquette loose on the boy, rather than actually mandating it…he would never condone doing something to his son that struck fear into his own heart.

He might, however, merely tease him about it.

In fact, it was a fairly foregone conclusion that he would tease him.

Chuckling again, he turned back to the note in his hand. It was certainly the first invitation to lunch he had ever received by thermotype.

There was, of course, the manner of a reply to consider…the use of thermotypes had been his best innovation yet. And, glancing back at the note from Tamaki, he had to agree with his son and admire how resourceful the commoner who invented this method must have been.

But with all the mayhem the commoner's device had caused for his son's club, Yuzuru found himself hard-pressed to find a method of reply that beat that of the mysterious blank letters in his relentless pursuit of ways to tease the boy.

He supposed, however, that he should sleep on it before submitting a reply so that he was sure to find a very _satisfactory_ method.

Humming softly to himself he pulled on his robe and retrieved a number of ledgers from his briefcase that chronicled everything from employment rosters of the Lowagran Hotel to a list of proposed productions at the Outo Theater.

Unfortunately, after the rather exhausting day his mind wasn't really on the columns of figures and revenues before him. Rather, with the typical absorption of a doting father, he was already mentally planning lunch with his son.

Despite the fact that he was seriously contemplating a method of reply to his son's note that would achieve the maximum amount of annoyance possible from him, he did genuinely realize the pressure that Tamaki had been under to perform in the past few days.

Dealing with _her_ never did seem to go well where Tamaki was concerned.

Indeed, he had asked Kyouya if he had, by chance, witnessed the meeting of Tamaki and his grandmother.

Kyouya, as expected, had indeed seen it and reported only that it went, "as usual."

And, Yuzuru knew far better than anyone else what "as usual" entailed.

As he reflected on the entire matter, he felt a twinge of the old guilt stir.

As a reward for dealing with his grandmother, Yuzuru decided that he would take him to a very good commoner's gourmet French restaurant that he had found while on a business trip to Kyoto.

He was sure that Tamaki would appreciate the small touch of his old home….especially when combined with the charming touch of commoners.

Yuzuru knew that he himself felt a bit closer to the country that had become like a second home to him just by sitting at the small, quaint tables and hearing the two French chefs talk amongst themselves in their own melodious language.

It was the least he could do to silently apologize to his son yet again.

But, guilt or no, that was an old and pitted path he didn't care to follow yet again on this particular night.

Because, above all, Tamaki seemed to be more than happy and seemed relatively well adjusted to his life in Japan.

He still cried, at the very least…copiously by all accounts. And, as he had told his secretary during the contest for the Central Salon, it was always a pleasure to see him cry. He was quite afraid that she hadn't taken the comment in the light it was supposed to be in, however.

He had simply meant, in his own _enigmatic_ way, that he was glad that Tamaki remained the innocent boy who had played the piano proudly for his father while his mother looked on…and then had promptly hidden in the corner and begun to sob when his mother had gently suggested that perhaps he would make fewer mistakes if he practiced more.

He smiled fondly at the memory, absentmindedly stretching farther out on the bed and shifting the pile of ledgers to a nearby table. Pulling open a nearby drawer, he placed the note inside it and shuffled the remaining pile of papers and trinkets around in search of a specific object.

Deep within the drawer, his fingers finally found the item that they were looking for. Victorious, he pulled it out carefully and set it upright on the table, making a mental note to replace it before he allowed himself to drift off to sleep.

In a simple oak frame stood the only woman he had ever loved, her smile radiant and gentle, with a hint of frailty lurking behind it. Her arms were around Tamaki, who looked to be about 5 or 6 years old, his hair tousled, windblown, and standing up at unruly angles. His smile nonetheless matched the woman who held him protectively, but there was no trace of any weakness to mar its resplendent qualities.

It was, he remembered, actually a minor miracle that he still had the photo in his possession.

Indeed, for a short while it had been proudly displayed on the wall above the headboard of his bed.

However, one day he had returned from a business trip to London to find that it was absent and that his mother was instead sitting in one of the high backed armchairs near the room's fireplace.

When he had entered she had simply remained watching him with an unvoiced, but nevertheless deeply angry, expression on her face.

As always, there was little room for discussion on the matter. The discussions concerning his past impact on the family name and its respectable image had long ago become quite protracted and there was no real point in allowing the woman to mount her high and judgmental horse yet again.

She simply rose and stated, "I'll not have that harlot or her bastard in my house in any form, Yuzuru," she gave a subtle, yet significant look at the wall where the picture had been, "One day you will learn to atone for your part in this shameful matter."

She then walked out, as slowly, coldly, and deliberately as she did on any normal occasion.

Yuzuru had been fairly certain that after the offending object had been removed, she had ordered one of the maids to have it destroyed. In this case, however, her abhorrence to do such undesirable work herself worked to his advantage.

A particularly brave and shrewd maid had saved it and placed a discreet note in the pocket of his robe to notify him of the photograph's new place of residence in the drawer. However, perhaps "brave and shrewd" was a fabrication on his part…perhaps she had merely feared the possible repercussions from the male Head of the Household if she firmly complied with the Matriarch's orders…

Sometimes Yuzuru swore that the servants of these mansions had better heads for delicate political conflicts than most highly paid consultants. But that was quite beside the point.

Now, the photograph only made an appearance on nights such as this one.

Smiling indulgently at the figures in the frame he said softly, "Darling, there's someone else who makes him cry now."

He had recognized her from the very first when the Host Club had wandered into his office.

Although she was for unfathomable reasons (Tamaki had laughed in a rather guilty manner and mumbled something about a vase, saying it was really in Kyouya's hands when he had inquired as to the reason for this) dressed as a male, with his fatherly instincts he understood that this was the girl he had already heard so much about.

And, although he at first had suspected that it was merely Tamaki's infatuation with commoners in the form of a girl that made him speak at such great and wordy lengths about this Haruhi – indeed, his incredible surprise at finding that she had more than adequate methods by which to boil water for tea was truly baffling – upon seeing him actually interact with the girl, he knew that it couldn't be only this.

Crossing his arms behind his head and resting them on one overstuffed pillow, he mumbled quietly to the person in the picture frame, "I've never seen him act so normally in front of any woman….except for perhaps, Shima…although there are obvious reasons for that," he paused, turning his head back to the table, "he cries far too often in front of this Haruhi Fujioka."

Yuzuru understood the reason for this, even though he thought that perhaps his rather dense and idiotic son – however endearing he found both these traits to be at times – didn't yet know what his own behavior meant.

And even though Yuzuru himself understood it…he wasn't quite sure what he thought about this revelation.

Suppose this Haruhi Fujioka did eventually return any sort of feelings to Tamaki…there was the matter of the two of them being divided by two entirely separate, although invisible worlds.

His own indiscretions had been a matter of bloodlines. He had tainted a highly cultivated lineage that had been recorded from time immemorial – if one believed his mother – with that of a lesser blood.

He had crossed one line…but, in many ways it was understandable within the system of closed off class hierarchies. The one he had chosen was still a member of the aristocracy.

Certainly, he did bear a good deal of responsibility for the dishonor of his first wife and Tamaki's own tenuous situation now…but Tamaki still had an upper-class pedigree.

And there was hope that he might one day be able to win them over, if only he were to overcome…well, the follies of his youth.

Indeed, tonight his grandmother had finally referred to him as his son.

But, he knew that even a tacit nod of recognition to the fact that her much vaunted son actually had something to do with Tamaki and, even formal recognition, couldn't protect him from the consequences of crossing a class line.

Because the love Tamaki saw, and the love Yuzuru himself had discovered, didn't enter the precisely ordered and ornate world that his grandmother belonged to.

Honor, respectability, and appearance would always be held up over any frivolous and ephemeral emotional attachment.

And yet, Yuzuru had to admit that these things had never been Tamaki's top priorities in life.

He would not hesitate to cross the lines, and, he had already begun to do so by eating the forkful of cake that a commoner had offered him…even if he himself didn't realize it.

His grandmother had simply thrown Yuzuru a look of mingled doubt and triumph…and yet later she had referred to Tamaki as his son and, in fact, even compared her own precious son to that "son of a harlot."

Sighing quietly, he rolled over laboriously and gently, almost caressingly, took the picture in his hands.

Kissing the woman behind the glass softly he whispered, "Hopefully he will show Mother his real caliber in the end…but, darling…if he were to cross that line and escape all this...?"

He found himself unable to finish his own thought out loud.

But, Yuzuru didn't know that he would stop him if he chose that.

Above all he recognized that Tamaki had to choose his own path, whether it be along the well-defined lines and borders of the world he was accustomed to or some route that he would have to forge for himself.

Sparing a glance at his son's unchanging smile – so brilliant and innocent– he knew that it was, and remained, the purveyor of a hope and possibility that was too pure to adequately describe.

Quietly, he turned over the frame and concentrated on the back for a moment, imagining the small scrap of paper that was securely lodged between the photograph and the backing. The only two items on it were a picture of the Catholic Saint, Bernadette, and an address in Lourdes, France written out in delicate script.

And again, he realized that the lines that surrounded Tamaki weren't simply the ones between his current situation and the multitude of possible futures before him, but also between these futures and the past he had forcibly left behind.

Giving the picture one final glance and a small, wistful smile, he placed it underneath the seemingly unimportant documents until he would have a chance to draw it out again on another night.

…A night on which he simply felt the need to talk to her.

And, frowning at the as of yet untouched account books, he picked up one of them and gave a cursory glance to the newest reports' balances and run-loss reports.

His wandering mind, still unable to completely care about the costume budget for the Outo Theater, happened upon a solution to his problem of the reply to Tamaki's thermotype.

He decided that he would simply ask Ms. Fujioka to deliver his invitation and enclose a request that Tamaki invite her along as well.

Yuzuru knew that the boy would object immediately…

…but perhaps he would cry at the thought.

_And,_ he thought, closing the account book and turning off the light, _it's always a pleasure to watch him cry, darling._

**Fin**

**A/N:** Please excuse my excessive use of artistic license and rampant speculation…although I did enjoy using both quite liberally. I found that Yuzuru was very difficult to write in comparison to Tamaki and Kyouya…because we simply don't know much, yet he's really a character that is central to the conflicts in Tamaki's world. And, like Tamaki, he's an excessively weird cross-section of zany and serious, so I tried to portray that as well as I could…and this is _especially_ where Tamaki is concerned. And of course, something about Tamaki's mother should really be said. It would be interesting to see more speculative pieces done about the pair (challenge! Any takers?). And also in the latest chapters Yuzuru simply takes the cake. (Is intentionally vague to avoid any spoilers). On the whole, I am quite satisfied with the way this chapter turned out.

Anyways, thank you to all the people who have left me lovely reviews (I think it's a curse…my favorite pieces always get the least amount of reviews / hits…). Also, in case you are wondering, there is one more chapter to go of this piece...which is, of course, Haruhi. That said, I hope you enjoyed this chapter, I know I loved writing it.


	4. Behind the Folding Screen

**Spoilers:** Again, this whole entire fic is pretty much a gigantic spoiler for the events of volume 6 of the manga.

**Disclaimer:** I'm most likely writing fanfiction because I don't own Host Club…I just play with the characters and their world from time to time to amuse myself.

**Part IV – Behind the Folding Screen**

After the chaotic weeks leading up to the Cultural Festival, she finally found a brief respite in which to sit back and think about the events that had happened in the past few days.

And after such a bizarre (and by her standards, almost entirely irrelevant to anything) week, Haruhi was glad to be walking out in the open and see buildings of normal sizes and unpretentious grocery store discount fliers advertising instant coffee in the dimly lighted windows she passed. She was glad to see people wearing sensible, mass produced clothing and people that she could not immediately point out as someone she had seen on the television just the other day.

Most of all, perhaps, she was glad because outside of the gilded halls of Ouran, where life seemed to be normal again and she knew, without a doubt, that school festivals merely had small classroom cafes for their events and their students did the majority of the work instead of directing it.

In Haruhi's mind, the past few days had been ridiculous even by the standards of the parallel universe known as Ouran High School.

Every day had revealed something of a greater degree of absurdity – students picking out fabric swatches and furniture for their class events, $100 pieces of cake, the construction of the entirety of Venice in the school's gym, contests that made it necessary for her to run up oil coated slopes and name the entire body of Vermeer's portraiture while in the most impractical clothing ever, having been enslaved to Kyouya simply because she was bad at cards…

…And it would be an understatement for her to admit that the days of the school festival had yet again caused her to re-evaluate her opinion of the free lifestyle of her classmates.

Much to her dismay, Haruhi couldn't even say that any of it necessarily surprised her anymore.

…There even appeared to be a strict taboo having to do with offering someone a bite of cake off one's own fork.

In all, she supposed that it all seemed entirely backwards.

No matter where Haruhi found she looked in the weird world she had tumbled down the rabbit hole into, she found she somehow managed to trip over or come up against strange lines and boundaries.

Every now and then there were flashes of something vaguely normal in that world…perhaps "normal" wasn't even the word…maybe "genuine_"_ or "real_"_ were more appropriate.

And at these moments everyone she now knew at Ouran stopped acting for a moment and _were_.

But, whenever she stepped out of there, she half felt as if the Host Club and all its strange characters might fade into absurd improbability behind her, because in the world that she had grown up in – the world where people behaved normally, lived in two room apartments, and avoided pointless and inexplicable excesses – seemed so at odds with everything that happened inside of that school.

There was, however, also a small part of her – held firmly in check by rationality – that had at the very least grown used to, and perhaps _enjoyed_ the antics of her fellow club members.

A strange thought hit her as she grudgingly admitted this to herself.

…Perhaps her "superficial" turned into "reality" if you had to live in it constantly like those rich bastards…

The thought was almost too deep to contemplate.

Much, _much_ too deep.

On the whole Haruhi found it much less problematic to maintain a healthy distance from their lives.

Setting a line between practicality and normality and, well, _Ouran_, seemed to be a necessary step to maintain her sanity for the next two years.

However, she had learned more about all of them in the past few weeks than perhaps she would have liked.

Indeed, in some very, very small place in her conscience, she felt a twinge of guilt because she, being a more rational person than most of them - except for Kyouya…however, his rationality was almost frightening in its well, _supreme_ rationality…she chided herself, now she was sounding like Tamaki – realized that they couldn't help being rich anymore than she could help being normal.

(Haruhi pointedly refused to call herself a "commoner" as she preferred to think that such a distinction only served to point out that all of them were very _uncommon_ in all of the wrong ways).

She recognized that they tried - well, "they" almost being limited to Tamaki and sometimes including the twins if they were bored and found her particularly entertaining at that moment - but at the same time that she saw glimpses of their lives she became all the more conscious that there was an illusive wall between them.

Somewhere she had heard that such a thing was called "conflicting social paradigms."

But Haruhi didn't know that she could ever really understand it, even should she try.

All that she knew as that the foundation of the wall was made of practical, quantifiable facts, and she liked to review facts rather than take part in the flights of fancy that everyone in her current close social sphere – her father included – seemed prone to.

To Haruhi, such facts remained objective indicators no matter who tried to manipulate them.

They were things she could enumerate one by one from just the evening's activities.

Leaving the school festival that night, she had returned a borrowed dress worth half the cost of her entire apartment to Hikaru and Kaoru's mother.

Hunny and Mori had waved good-bye to her as they left in a Rolls Royce as she made her way to the gates of the school grounds on foot.

Kyouya had informed her of the exact total of the remaining debt she had to pay off - with that particular smile of his - before stepping into his own Bentley and following his father who had already boarded _a second_ Bentley.

He did not so much as offer to give her a ride, as Hunny and Mori had.

…not that she would ever have accepted his offer for fear of what it might cost her.

Then there was the flurry of horrified sounding conversations had gone up when she had simply made what turned out to be a slight, though completely nonsensical, error in etiquette…

But the facts – totaled in yen, refined mannerisms, and material items she could never hope to own – constructed the base of the wall that she somehow managed to catch a glimpse over now and then.

And, unfortunately for her sanity, Haruhi also realized that this was just the part of the wall that was _obvious_ to her…

Perhaps, she thought, rounding the last block to her apartment complex, it was not so much a "wall" as it was a folding screen.

Even as she thought this, Haruhi could not help but feel a little ridiculous…upon deciding to refer to it as such, her mind had immediately conjured up an image of the entire Host Club sitting behind a folding screen.

Looking like that, they quite reminded her of the daimyo's of the Edo period.

But if that were the case…she would definitely be their vassal. The idea was not appealing at all…being Kyouya's slave was an experience she hoped never to repeat.

But, strange mental images aside, the thought somehow seemed to fit them.

She could definitely see their outlines through it, but they were merely silhouettes that outlined the shape of what they were without any detail that was discernable through the thin material.

Haruhi knew without a doubt that each of them had their own (_considerable_) quirks.

Hunny was confusing because she could never quite tell how calculated his personality was. Haruhi didn't know if he was simply as ridiculously surreal as he appeared or just a coded enigma. Either was a little much to contemplate.

And, although Mori made up for his lack of speech with meaningful action, his silence was still a barrier to any real knowledge. If you couldn't unlock his brief responses or the quiet that they interrupted, it would be difficult to know any real details about him. Perhaps, if she found she wanted to know about him, she would ask Hunny, whom she knew could interpret every small gesture ever made by his cousin.

Kyouya, on the other hand, wore his wealth and refinement like a coat, and, while she was sure (well, she _hoped_) that there was something quite different underneath it all, Haruhi knew very well that he had not been dubbed the "Shadow King" for a habit of direct behavior. Thinking back to a conversation she had overheard her father having with "Kyouya-kun" last night, Haruhi fleetingly wondered if the Kyouya beneath the façade was still as troublesome of an individual as this one was.

As for the twins, well, they were slowly learning that she was not a toy at all and that "our" could be used in a much broader sense – Kaoru definitely learned this at a faster rate than Hikaru – but Haruhi could never quite see their infamous boredom as anything but a product of their wealthy upbringing.

Too much constant stimulation during childhood, perhaps, she thought logically.

And Tamaki…?

Haruhi didn't really know what to think of him anymore. She didn't know if, knowing what she now did, she could call him "troublesome" as she usually would, but she failed to find a word to replace it. And even though she had an explanation, she wasn't yet sure if it made him any less of a foolish person.

She decided she would avoid thinking about it, if possible.

But these were just impressions – silhouettes – rather than any actual knowledge about any of them.

Besides calculations of yen and displays of more refined social mannerisms, Haruhi always found that the number of facts she possessed about each one of them were surprisingly few.

It seemed that every day during the preparations for the festival, something came up to remind her that she was very much deficient in the information she had about the other members of the Host Club.

And, sometimes it seemed to her that most of the things she didn't know were already common knowledge to everyone but herself.

Haruhi still didn't think that she would go out of her way to catch up with her classmates, but, she couldn't help but wonder what the side of the screen that the members of the Host Club lived on looked like.

She had never been to one of their houses or heard anything about their family lives. She didn't know anything whatsoever about their family businesses, their academic quirks, or even their family members…

Whereas _they_ had come into her house, met her father (and _Kyouya_, the most dangerous and problematic of them all, kept in constant communication with him…), been bothersome to her father's co-workers…it sometimes seemed as if they had hired a private detective to document every mundane aspect of her life.

…and she definitely wouldn't put it past them.

Especially Kyouya.

But when it came down to anything outside of the doors of the Third Music Room…Haruhi remained in a state of not so blissful ignorance.

In fact, she would much rather view them in the way every one of them presented themselves within the club, simply as a strange stereotype. It was far less problematic…however she found that she often was able to catch a glimpse of the figures that cast the silhouette just beyond the screen.

Contemplating exactly what it all meant, she dug around within her school bag for the key to her apartment's door, and in the dim light, found the familiar keyhole.

The lock clicked and the door swung open to allow her to enter her dark apartment.

Putting aside thoughts of the festival and the members of the Host Club, she briefly debated as to whether she would study before bed. For once, the exhaustion she felt won out over her urge to take advantage of the rare moments of silence that her life now contained (between her father and the Host Club it seemed increasingly amazing to her that they existed _at all_) in order to pour over her small mountain of textbooks.

Glancing guiltily one last time at her desk (specifically at some French love poetry that she had been assigned to translate – why, the teacher had chosen it she couldn't fathom), she took her futon out and unrolled it on the floor.

Frowning at nothing in particular, she pulled off her uniform and left it crumpled on the floor, changing into much more practical clothing for bed.

_If I leave it as it is, it is bound to wrinkle_, she thought passively, gazing at the heap that was her uniform.

In fact, she wondered what they would all think if she showed up one day in its wrinkled glory – and she narrowly had quite a few times, if not for her father's intervention by iron.

Tamaki would probably think she slept in a street somewhere because she had been unable to pay her rent or something idiotic like that.

Deciding that she wanted to avoid that at all costs, she walked over and picked up the discarded clothing and hung it up over a chair where it wouldn't become _too_ wrinkled.

It disturbed her a little that she could now guess exactly which conclusion her overly excitable Senpai would jump to. But she immediately dismissed that thought in order to brush her teeth and finish preparing for bed.

All that remained of the night's routine was to tell her mother goodnight.

Kneeling down before the family altar and lighting the small stick of lavender incense, she began her habitual address, "Mother in Heaven, today was the school festival. It was as bizarre as school usually is. Father and I are doing well, and even though they seem to play more than anyone normal, so is the Host Club."

Haruhi smiled at her mother's picture, wondering what exactly her mother would have thought of the life she lived now.

"I wish I would have had more time to study last week, but my grades are still fine, and I hope they will be good enough to get me into law school."

Even when she had slipped momentarily in the rankings, Haruhi always told her mother this. It was the goal she had been pursing since middle school and the reason why she had gone to Ouran in the first place.

She had decided ten years ago that she had wanted to be a lawyer like her mother.

And, although Haruhi never elaborated on this or spoke of it to anyone else about it, she wanted to be like her mother in more ways than simply pursuing her chosen occupation.

Haruhi remembered her kindness and independence, as well as her cheerful habitual farewell of "Haruhi-chan! Mother's going to win another case today." Those aspects were what becoming like her mother meant to her.

Her goal was_ far_ greater than simply achieving her law degree.

But Haruhi, with her normal sense of economy and practicality, condensed everything under the convenient label of "becoming a lawyer." It made things much less difficult to explain, if asked.

And as she did every night in the ten years since her mother's passing, she looked very closely at the picture in front of her, to the point where she could almost see her own reflection in the glass, and said, "Mother in Heaven, I still miss you."

But tonight, after all that she had learned in the past few weeks, this habitual sentence aroused a different set of thoughts in her head.

Surprisingly, her mind returned back to Tamaki and what she had just learned about his mother.

Out of all of them, she would never have guessed that Tamaki had a life like that. In fact, it seemed to be straight out of one of the Korean dramas her father was fond of watching in his free time.

And yet, despite all the unfortunate circumstances that had been forced upon him, Tamaki could still smile when she asked him about the mother he had not been allowed to see in at least three years.

There wasn't even so much as a trace of his normal overly dramatic sadness.

Haruhi wondered, with a touch of admiration that she was unaccustomed to feeling for him, how exactly he handled all of it the way he did.

She herself missed her own mother dearly and knew that there was no possible way of seeing her and speaking to her again.

However, Tamaki's own mother was alive somewhere…he _could_ see her…but it seemed that his grandmother had placed a line in front of him that he could not cross. Tamaki's position wasn't the same as hers…in many ways, in was _worse_.

His grandmother was holding something in front of him that he couldn't freely reach out to anymore…while Haruhi knew that, for her, that precious person was simply gone and preserved only in her own goals in life.

And yet, he still smiled _genuinely_…and spoke too loudly about irrelevant things, and did seemingly pointless favors for anyone who needed them, and so many other things.

Tamaki, she had realized some time ago, did not affect any persona in front of others. He was very much what he appeared to be.

Certainly he had the ability to behave himself (and she was not so surprised by what she had learned as to forget that Tamaki's version of "behavior" differed greatly from everyone else's') better in front of clients…

But there was no fundamental change in his attitude as there was in both the twins and Kyouya during the hours of the club's operation and the periods of the time when the seven of them mulled over inane cosplay ideas alone within the doors of the Third Music Room.

In both cases Tamaki always remained Tamaki.

And, having realized Tamaki's degree of openness long ago, it seemed strange that Haruhi knew as little about the dark soap opera that was his life as she did.

For a long time, she had thought that one such as him would declaim every sort of bad luck and slight against him to the world simply because he liked the sound of his own voice a little too much.

But it seemed everything she learned about him, from his father being the chairman of the school to the fact that he was in fact the chairman's illegitimate child accepted into his family by the coldest woman she had ever seen, seemed to come from someone else.

Actually, she realized with a pang of guilt that once he _had_ tried to tell her about his life himself and, moreover, in front of the St. Lobelia Zuka club.

And Haruhi, because if its timing had dismissed it as something irrelevant - even though it _was_ decidedly irrelevant at the time – she had simply assumed someone with his carefree attitude wouldn't have anything like _that_ in his past. Looking back, she had a rare moment of realization of the full extent of her own insensitivity towards him.

Brushing the guilty feeling aside, she briefly wondered if Tamaki had ever tried to use his puppy eyes on his grandmother…but she could not so much as imagine _anyone_, Tamaki included, looking kindly at a woman like that.

Well, it did seem to work on Kyouya, so there might be hope.

And Haruhi knew very well that it took a good deal to make Kyouya appear to have somewhat of a benign personality, but somehow, the Suoh Matriarch had managed to do it.

But even then, with the horrid things she had overheard her say to Tamaki she couldn't imagine she herself being at all kind to that woman.

Because, tonight she had realized that she herself could not in the least do what Tamaki Suoh did.

Despite everything, somehow Tamaki still managed to smile at his grandmother and care about offending her (even though he was very much off the mark at _how_ he had done so).

Perhaps even stranger was that, in thinking about it, a troublesome person like him did certainly have the capacity to get lost in the sad parts of his life. Before tonight, Haruhi might have considered Tamaki to be one of these people.

However, to the best of her ability, Haruhi could tell that he didn't have any such darkness within him.

His words to her at the dance party confirmed that, as far as she was concerned. And moreover, he had made a conscious mistake in front of everyone, including his grandmother – that had been entirely her fault – and he showed absolutely no regret.

And she was glad that he didn't regret being himself. He was loud, obnoxious, and overly excitable to the point where she wondered if he ended up absolutely exhausted every night…but all of this was channeled into a strong positive energy.

Almost _too_ positive, in fact.

But his energetic nature didn't come from idiocy…it came from knowing pain and not allowing it to touch him. In affect, Tamaki made himself almost invincible, annoying though it sometimes could seem.

In fact, she thanked whatever higher powers were up there that Tamaki was not a regretful, dark person…she couldn't imagine what he might do after growing mushrooms in despair and didn't want to know how troublesome his personality had the potential to become.

But she was also glad because, this way, Tamaki would be Tamaki with all the implications that had, good and bad.

In his own words, said without the least egoism and ulterior motives, "I'm me before I'm a Suoh."

Haruhi didn't pretend to understand the folding screen of wealth and names that was placed between her and seemingly the entirety of Ouran High School.

What she did understand was that Tamaki, and maybe some of the others, were willing to peek over it at her.

She smiled for a brief moment, turning her attention back to the beaming face of her mother.

"Mother in Heaven," she continued, "Today I learned that the troublesome president of the club I am in is actually better the way he is, despite his annoying characteristics. He wants me to see photos of his Mother someday, as well. Maybe she's someone that you would have gotten along with."

Bidding her one last goodnight when she had finished with the report about her day's activities, Haruhi blew out the incense and moved to turn out the light and lie down on her futon.

Her last that before closing her eyes was, _But most of all, Mother in Heaven, I am glad that I can understand him a little better now._

**FIN**

**A/N:** It's done! It's done! I can't decide if Yuzuru or Haruhi was more difficult to write…probably Haruhi. But I love the degree of resonance possible between Haruhi and Tamaki simply due to their mothers. And, Haruhi strikes me as someone whose independence and strength would be a testament to that of her own mothers' virtues as well. Haruhi kept wandering off and getting bored on me…and for some reason it was excruciatingly hard to get her thoughts to bridge over to Tamaki specifically. She wanted to do more general analysis and then simply go to sleep.

It would certainly be practical…oh irony.

These are some of my favorite pieces that I have written for Ouran. I particularly loved the Yuzuru piece for no apparent reason…and the Kyouya one kinda astounds me when I go back and read it now. Although all of the pieces can stand-alone perfectly fine, there's a number of small details and doublets that link them together besides the overarching theme of the school festival. There's obvious things like the photographs in Yuzuru and Haruhi, and the spacial planes (Suoh Mansion #2 and the Ootori Car in Tamaki's and Kyouya's) and then small mentions of things sprinkled throughout.

What I really tried to do, however, was, even though the piece is predominately Tamaki-centric, you really only got his character analysis through the lenses of the other characters' lives and experiences (with the exception, of course, of his own section).

And, I was right…my favorite pieces get no reviews! Anyways, as always, feedback, comments, etc are very much appreciated and will almost always receive a personal response. I hope you enjoyed all of them, because I certainly enjoyed writing them!


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